Looking Back on Early Days in Brokerage
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” People love to ask kids this question, expecting answers like “a firefighter,” “an astronaut,” or “a movie star.” A kid who answers, “a commercial real estate broker,” would probably elicit surprise. Yet commercial real estate is an ideal profession for many, including several SIORs we interviewed who revealed what initially attracted them to the profession and what keeps them there.
STARTING POINTSPaths into the field differed widely. Some SIORs were born to it, literally: Commercial real estate was the family business. For example, the family of Joyce Slone, SIOR, managing broker and principal of Slone Commercial LLC in Elmhurst, Ill., owned a construction and development firm. As the only early riser among five kids, she was the one who joined her father on Saturday mornings to clean buildings under construction, after which he treated her to breakfast or lunch. When she was a teenager, he asked her to fill in for a secretary who had called in sick. The secretary never came back, so Slone became the firm’s part-time secretary throughout high school. During college she worked for her father full-time and obtained her real estate license.
Grant Pruitt, SIOR, co-founder, president, and managing director of Whitebox Real Estate in Dallas, started following in the footsteps of his father—also an SIOR—in high school. The younger Pruitt recalls that one summer day, his father came to him and said, “I want you to understand how I make a living. Put on a suit; you’re going to come work for me.” The teenager enjoyed meeting people and learning the ins and outs of the business, even though he experienced “humbling” rejections during cold calls.
Early-career experience working at his family’s construction company benefited Ernie Wronka, SIOR, president of Wronka, Ltd. Commercial Real Estate Advisors in Woburn, Mass. Although he subsequently served as a national marketing manager for a pharma company, Wronka’s years at the family firm—along with his studies in civil engineering—helped him land his first job in commercial real estate brokerage.
Jeff Hoffman, SIOR, principal at Cushman & Wakefield | The Boerke Company in Milwaukee, had no family ties to real estate, nor was his introduction to the industry positive: The flashy realtor his parents used when selling their house was an enormous disappointment. He had assured Hoffman’s parents that he could easily sell their house within 30 days, but the process took 10 months and, as Hoffman recalls, was “about as unprofessional as it could have been.”
Yet despite the experience, or perhaps in part because of it, Hoffman was sufficiently motivated to enroll in a commercial real estate class at his college. Eventually he decided to major in finance with an emphasis in real estate. Soon he had an internship under his belt and a real estate license—all while still in school. Two days after graduation, he started a full-time job at the business where he had previously interned. “I loved the career from day one,” he says.
"The beautiful thing about this business is that people who are good at it really have a passion about it and they enjoy showing up."
For Mike Maroon, SIOR, managing partner of The Acclaim Group in Chatham, N.J., commercial real estate represented a major career change. He started out in law enforcement, but when he got married, he began to rethink his profession, realizing that his unusual hours might not be so ideal for a newlywed. His father listened to the younger Maroon’s concerns and said, "Why don’t you try commercial real estate? I’ve heard that’s good.” Reflecting on this conversation, Maroon says that he was grasping at straws to such a degree that had his father suggested a career as a circus clown, the newlywed “probably would have bought the rubber nose.”
Fortunately, his father knew a residential realtor, who met with Maroon. Maroon told the realtor that although he didn’t know much about real estate, he believed that commercial was a better fit for him than residential. The realtor responded by inviting Maroon to launch the brokerage’s commercial division. Maroon did exactly that in the evenings and weekends while working at a jail five days a week. Within six or eight months, Maroon’s moonlighting earned him what amounted to double his jail salary.
THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURETheir beginnings differed significantly, but it’s easy to find similarities among these SIORs today: They are all enjoying successful careers while doing what they love. “I never get up on Monday and go, ‘Oh jeez, I’ve got to go to work,’” says Maroon. “Commercial real estate is my hobby,” Wronka states. Pruitt expresses his “love of the business,” noting that he can create positive change and help clients achieve their long and short-term goals through real estate. “There is nothing more rewarding than that,” he concludes. Such comments support Hoffman’s contention that “the beautiful thing about this business is that people who are good at it really have a passion about it and they enjoy showing up.”
That passion has helped these SIORs navigate challenges that have arisen over the course of their careers. Markets rose and fell. The COVID-19 pandemic altered the real estate landscape, at least temporarily. And then there is the nature of the advisory role: “You can do everything in the world correctly, and things outside of your control can derail a deal that you’ve put hundreds or possibly thousands of hours into,” says Hoffman.
On a micro-level, these SIORs faced individual obstacles. Wronka, for example, was disappointed by the second and third brokerage firms he joined, prompting him to establish his own. Slone had to cope with being one of the few women in industrial brokerage in the Chicago area, especially early on in her career.
Despite the challenges, the persistence of these SIORs has never waned, and neither has their goal-setting. Pruitt plans to keep growing and expanding his business and asserts that he’d say the same thing in 30 years’ time. Maroon wants to continue building his client base. Wronka is planning to increase his expertise in additional areas, such as retail and multifamily development, and hopes to take on progressively larger assignments across all his firm’s disciplines.
As Hoffman observes, “This business never stops.” And neither do these SIORs.
This article was sponsored by the SIOR Foundation - Promoting and sponsoring initiatives that educate, enhance, and expand the commercial real estate community. The SIOR Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-forprofit organization. All contributions are tax deductible to the extent of the law.
CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS
Jeff Hoffman, SIOR
Mike Maroon, SIOR
Grant Pruitt, SIOR
Joyce Slone, SIOR
Ernie Wronka, SIOR